


More Human Than Human

by hannasus



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2011-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:18:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannasus/pseuds/hannasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ongoing serial that introduces Psylocke to the movieverse, drawing on her comic origins, but rebooted and reinvented. The story picks up several months after X2 ends. The events of The Last Stand haven't happened, nor will they in this alternate version of the universe, but I will be incorporating the canon presented in First Class wherever appropriate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks and Cannibal Girls

Logan probably wouldn’t even have noticed the girl if it hadn’t been for the purple hair.

He was crammed into the corner booth of a truck stop diner in bumfuck, West Virginia, the remnants of a plateful of truly awful steak and eggs in front of him. The girl was sitting up at the counter nursing a cup of coffee and nothing else.

You didn’t generally get a lot of purple-haired girls in grimy truck stops at two o’clock in the morning. Or a lot of girls, for that matter. Mostly the place was full of tired-looking truck drivers fueling up on greasy eggs and silty coffee before hitting the road again.

Logan wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the girl, either. The two men sitting across the counter from her kept shooting surreptitious looks in her direction. The purple-haired girl didn’t seem to notice, though. She didn’t seem to notice much of anything around her, in fact. Just sat there at the counter hunched over her coffee mug.

Logan leaned back in his seat and pulled a stogie and a nickel-plated Zippo out of his shirt pocket. The girl was pretty, he decided, although it was hard to tell the way she was dressed. Her jeans were loose and faded, her sweatshirt baggy and nondescript, and her hair cut so that the lank layers fell down into her eyes, effectively masking half her face. Pretty much everything about her said “don’t look at me.” Everything except that crazy purple hair.

The waitress came by to drop off his check. “More coffee?” she asked.

Logan shook his head. “I’m good, thanks.”

He puffed on his cigar and watched the girl, wondering what her story was. Not that he cared, really. But she was an anomaly. This particular joint was one of the seedier truck stops along this stretch of I-64; it wasn’t the kind of place a woman traveling alone tended to stop in the middle of the night. And he knew for a fact there was a big shiny Love’s Truck Stop two exits back with a Chester’s Chicken, a well-lit parking lot and a somewhat higher class of customer.

The waitress moved over to the girl and topped up her coffee cup. “Sure I can’t get you anything else, darlin’?”

The girl looked up for the first time since Logan had started watching her. She had cobalt-blue eyes that somehow managed to be both shy and piercing at the same time. She was also older than he’d thought at first: approaching 30, or maybe on the far side of it already. “Is there a pay phone around here?” she asked.

“Outside. Around the back, by the showers.”

“Thanks.”

She rummaged around in a big canvas purse until she came up with a couple of dollars and a handful of change. She left the bills on the counter and headed out the door, presumably in search of a phone. A moment later the two men sitting across from her got up and headed out as well.

Logan watched them thoughtfully, chewing on his cigar. After a moment he got up too, slapped some bills on the table, and exited.

He paused just outside the front door of the diner and stretched, pulling his head down toward each of his shoulders until he felt the joint in his neck pop. Big rigs roared down the interstate, close enough to make the asphalt tremble beneath his feet.

Logan sniffed the exhaust-choked air. He turned to the right and walked around the side of the building. The sound of his steps were muffled by the rumble of an eighteen-wheeler pulling into one of the oversized spaces out front. As soon as he came around the corner he could see that the two men from the diner had the girl with the purple hair cornered by the pay phones. None of them had noticed Logan’s approach.

“Just give up the bag, lady,” said one of the men. He was a weaselly-looking guy in a red gimme cap and a plaid flannel shirt.

“Yeah,” said the other, a tall, barrel-bellied fella wearing an old green army jacket. “Hand it over, or things’ll get ugly.”

“Please don’t do this,” the girl said. She was backed up against the wall of the diner. The wan yellow security lights in the parking lot glinted off the whites of her eyes.

“Guess we’ll have to do this hard way,” said the guy in the army jacket. He held up a switchblade and flicked it open menacingly. “Hard way’s more fun for me, anyway.”

He started to advance on the girl.

“Don’t you punks have anything better to do than pick on a poor helpless girl?” Logan said loudly.

The two men spun around, startled. Then the one in the red hat smiled an oily smile. “Hey, look, Richie, I guess this guy wants to give us all his money, too.”

“You want my wallet?” Logan said. “Tell you what, if you can come over here and take it from me, you can have it.”

The big guy grinned. “You think I can’t take you?”

Logan gazed at him, the cigar hanging crookedly from the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know, bub, why don’t you try it and find out.”

Richie moved toward him, knife raised to strike. As soon as he was within reach Logan's hand flashed out and grabbed the man's wrist, twisting viciously. The knife clattered to the ground and there was a sickening crack as one of the bones in Richie’s wrist snapped. He cried out in pain and fell to his knees.

What a couple of knuckleheads, Logan thought. He wasn’t even going to need to the claws the deal with these jokers.

Except that apparently the little guy in the red hat was the type to bring a gun to a knife fight. He leveled a .22 caliber revolver at Logan. “Nice kung fu,” he said, trying to maintain a tough facade even while his buddy writhed on the ground clutching a broken wrist. “But now you’re gonna toss over your wallet.”

“Or what?” Logan said. “You’re gonna shoot me with your little toy gun?” A gun that size would barely even slow him down, assuming the guy even managed to hit him. He didn’t exactly have the look of an expert marksman. On the other hand, Logan was wearing his favorite jacket and he really hated to get bullet holes in it.

“It won’t feel like a toy when there’s a bullet tearing your guts out,” the guy retorted in a transparent show of bravado.

“Go ahead and try it,” Logan said, a growl forming at the back of his throat. “See where it gets you.” He held his hands at his sides and extended his claws with an icy _SNIKT_.

Red hat took a shaky step backwards, eyes wide with fear.

The girl with the purple hair was still backed up against the wall of the diner, frozen in shock. Logan shot her a look. “Now’d probably be a good time for you to run, kid.”

She didn’t hesitate, not even a little bit. She was off at a run and out of sight around the far side of the diner without even bothering to throw a backwards glance in his direction.

“As for you,” Logan said, baring his teeth in a wide grin, “didn’t anyone ever tell you that violence only breeds more violence?”

  
**\- X -**   


“I was in fear for my life,” Elizabeth said. That was the key, a lawyer friend had once told her. As long as you could convince them you were legitimately in fear for your life, you could get away with almost anything. “One of them had a knife and the other had a gun.”

She didn’t like talking to the police. It made the backs of her eyeballs itch. And so far the state trooper questioning her hadn’t even bothered to write a bloody thing down on his little notepad. This was starting to feel like an enormous waste of time.

“What about the other one?” he asked impatiently. “Can you describe him?”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together in irritation. “I told you. He came to my rescue. They were trying to rob me and he interrupted. They threatened to kill us both.”

“They said he had some kind of metal claws or knives that came out of his fists? Is that right?”

She hesitated a split second before answering. “I didn’t see anything like that.”

Of course, _that_ was what the idiot decided to write down. Her gaze wandered across the parking lot. Red and blue police lights flashed where they’d set up roadblocks at either end of the frontage road alongside the interstate. Officers from the county sheriff’s department and the state police patrolled a wide perimeter around the truck stop, the erratic beams of their flashlights bouncing around the uneven landscape.

“But you saw him break the big guy’s wrist?” the trooper said.

She brushed a lock of purple hair off her forehead and tried to tamp down her growing exasperation. “Only after the guy came at him with a knife.”

This was going all wrong. The state police obviously weren’t interested in what had actually happened; all they cared about was hunting down another mutant.

There was a crunch of gravel on asphalt as another man trudged across the parking lot toward them. “This the woman who saw the mutant?” he asked. He was wearing a suit instead of a uniform but judging by his brusque manner and cheap haircut Elizabeth assumed he was yet another member of the state’s esteemed law enforcement community.

“She says she didn’t see any claws, lieutenant,” the trooper said.

“Doesn’t matter, we’ve got two witnesses who did and one of them’s got a nice set of slashes across his face to corroborate. Bring her down to the command station, we’ll see if she can give us a better description of the mutant.”

“I really didn't get a very good look at him,” Elizabeth said. “It was pretty dark and it all happened so fast.”

“I still need you to come in and look at some photos, maybe sit with the sketch artist.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”

The wind kicked up a flurry of dust and sent a crumpled tall boy spinning across the asphalt. “You got any gum on you, Slayton?” the lieutenant asked the trooper. “This goddamn weather is giving me a hell of dry mouth.”

“I think I might have a mint,” the trooper said, digging around in his pockets.

“Spearmint or peppermint? I can’t stomach the green ones.”

“Is it all right if I go to the bathroom?” Elizabeth asked.

The lieutenant nodded absently. “Sure.”

She walked off in the direction of the diner. On the way she passed a couple of sheriff’s deputies but they didn’t so much as glance at her. As soon as she was out of sight of the lieutenant and the trooper she paused and looked around. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her. She stepped out into the parking lot and slipped into the shadowy aisle between two parked eighteen-wheelers.

Her car was only a few rows away. If she could make it there without anyone noticing, she’d be home free. She’d seen them letting cars through the roadblock after a cursory search, and she was pretty confident she could bluff her way through it.

She walked toward her car, slowly enough to avoid making any more noise than necessary, but not so slowly she’d look suspicious if anyone happened to see her. When she was almost even with the cab of the truck to her left she stopped. Then she took one slow step back and peered up into the shadows.

There, crouched up on the rig between the trailer and the cab, was the mutant everyone was looking for.

 


	2. Two-Lane Blacktop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Try to look protective," she whispered. "There's a deranged mutant on the loose, remember?"

Elizabeth's gaze locked with the mutant's and held for a long, tense moment. His eyes were wide and feral, his teeth bared in a silent snarl.

She heard the telltale crunch of footsteps approaching to her right and stepped quickly away from the truck. Another state trooper, much younger than the one who'd been questioning her, appeared around the front of the truck, shining a flashlight up into the windows of the cab. He halted when he saw her.

"You shouldn't be wandering around alone, lady. That mutant's still on the loose."

"I'm not sure, but think maybe I saw someone running off toward those trees over there," Elizabeth said, pointing across the far side of the lot.

"I'll look into it," the deputy said. He hurried off in the direction she'd indicated.

Once he was out of sight Elizabeth turned back to where the mutant was crouched, frozen in the shadows. "I can get you away from here," she said.

His eyes narrowed and flicked back and forth suspiciously. He didn't move.

"We don't have all night," she said. "Do you want my help or not?"

"How?" he asked finally.

"Take off your jacket," she said. She pulled her sweatshirt over her head and tossed it up to him. "Put that on."

He looked skeptical, but he did it. As it happened it was an XXL, baggy enough even to fit over his broad back and shoulders.

She dug around in her purse, pulled out a black knit cap and tossed that up to him as well. "And that."

The hat was a tight fit, but it was stretchy. And it managed to cover up most of his hair. The hair on his head, anyway; there was nothing to be done about the muttonchops he was sporting.

He jumped down onto the pavement beside her and his lips peeled back into a grimace that might have been a smile. "How do I look?"

"You'll do," she said. "Give me your jacket."

He held it out and she slipped the jacket on. It was a good thing she was tall or it would have swallowed her up completely. For the finishing touch she un-knotted the scarf tied to her purse and fastened it around her head, effectively hiding most of her purple hair.

"Ready?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Hold my hand. You're my boyfriend now."

"Whatever you say, sweetheart." He twined his meaty fingers with hers. She tried not to think about the claws that had come shooting out of that fist earlier or what would happen to her fingers if he extended them now. They stepped out into the open and started moving toward her car. A cluster of uniformed men had gathered over on the far side of the lot where she'd directed the trooper, but there was no one in their immediate vicinity.

"Try to look protective," she whispered. "There's a deranged mutant on the loose, remember?"

His mouth crooked in what she was almost certain was a smile this time.

Half the lights in the parking lot were out, including the one above her car. An anorexic sliver of moon shone halfheartedly through the clouds and the hills along the horizon rose up like a blacker stain on the black night around them. They walked across the parking lot hand-in-hand, at a leisurely pace, like any two normal people would if they were definitely not trying to avoid the police.

Just when she thought they were going to make it a sheriff's department cruiser peeled off from the roadblock and started heading in their direction. She felt the man beside her tense.

"Be cool," she warned quietly as the cruiser approached. It pulled up alongside them and the deputy at the wheel rolled down the window.

Elizabeth leaned over to talk to him, casually positioning herself so that she was mostly blocking his view of the man who was supposed to be her boyfriend. "You guys find that mutie yet?" she asked.

"Not yet," he said. "But they're bringing in the dogs. We'll get him for sure, then."

"I hope so."

"You two give your statements already?"

"Yeah, the state troopers said they were all through with us. We didn't see anything."

"All right. Be safe, you hear?"

"You too." She stepped back and watched as the cruiser pulled away and drove off toward the diner. Her heart felt like it was about to pound its way out of her chest. She reached into her pocket and squeezed the remote for her little white Honda. "Get in," she said, jerking open the driver's side door.

"That was close," the man growled as he slid into the passenger seat beside her.

"We've still got to get past the roadblock." She started the car and slowly navigated through the parking lot and out onto the feeder. The object, she silently reminded herself, was to get away without looking like you were trying to get away. She approached the waiting deputy and eased to a stop, rolling the window down.

"I thought those state troopers would never let us go," she said. "We're trying to get to St. Louis in time for my cousin's bridesmaid's luncheon tomorrow."

He nodded and shined his flashlight through the windows of the car. Her hands clenched the steering wheel in a death grip while the deputy peered at the man in the passenger seat. After a moment that only felt like an eternity he turned away to check out the backseat. "Pop your trunk for me, ma'am."

"Sure." She hit the trunk release by her feet and waited.

After another few moments she felt the trunk slam closed and the deputy reappeared at her window. "Ya'll take it easy, now."

"Thanks." She rolled up the window, pulled away from the roadblock, and exhaled deeply.

"Some roadblock," the man beside her said. "I can't believe they just let me ride right past 'em."

"Most cops are idiots. As long as you act like you belong they can't be bothered to think any different." She eased the car onto the interstate, accelerated, and set the cruise control for exactly 65 m.p.h. The truck stop gradually receded in the rearview mirror.

"Guess I owe you for getting me out of there," the man said gruffly, pulling the knit hat off his head and stuffing it into the console between them.

"It was the least I could do," she said. "I'm Elizabeth, by the way."

"Logan."

He reached up to fiddle with the air vents and she found herself staring at his knuckles, wondering where the blades came out, exactly. And where they went when he retracted them. She couldn't imagine it could be comfortable.

"You're not afraid of me are you?" He'd caught her staring at his hands.

"Should I be?" she asked.

The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn't say anything.

She put on her turn signal and moved into the left lane to pass a slow-moving truck. "You can control them, right? I mean, the blades don't just shoot out randomly do they?"

He snorted lightly. "I can control them."

"In that case I guess I'll be fine." They were both silent a while. "You leave a car back there?" she asked finally.

"Nah, I was hitching."

"Headed east or west?"

"East."

"Well, you're going west now. Sorry."

"I'll manage."

"Once we get over the state line you'll probably be all right. I can drop you at the bus station in Lexington if you like."

"Appreciate it." He pulled the sweatshirt she'd given him off over his head and turned to toss it into the back seat. His gaze lingered on the clutter of clothes and discarded fast food containers she'd collected back there. "You living out of your car or something?"

"I'm sort of between places at the moment," she said. "I was staying with friends, but..." The sentence died on her lips. _But they turned out to be terrorists plotting the mass murder of thousands of innocent people._ It wasn't the sort of thing you could go around telling people.

"But what?" he prompted.

"It didn't work out," she said simply.

"So where you headed now?"

"Mind if turn on the radio?" She reached over and hit the button before he could answer. Static blared over the speakers and she hit seek, searching for some music.

"Guess I'm not the only one with a secret," he said, smirking.

She didn't say anything, just kept skipping through the radio stations looking for something tolerable to fill up the silence and obviate the need for further conversation. Logan apparently got the message that she wasn't interested in chatting, because he slouched down in his seat and closed his eyes. By the time she'd found a halfway decent '80s station he was snoring like a buzz saw.

She drove into Lexington a couple of hours later as the first watery rays of morning sunlight peeked over the horizon. When she pulled off the freeway her passenger roused himself and sat up, rubbing his eyes. She followed the signs to the Greyhound terminal and parked in the mostly-empty lot. It was in a dismal-looking part of town that mostly seemed to consist of dollar stores and check cashing joints. A stray dog pawed hopefully at a discarded fast food bag in the parking lot in a few yards away.

"So," she said awkwardly. "Here we are."

"Yep," he said. "Can I get my jacket back now?"

"Course, sorry." She'd completely forgotten she was still wearing it. It was the kind of authentic vintage motorcycle jacket fashionistas coveted; there was a time not so long ago when Elizabeth would have seriously fancied such a thing. Now she handed it over without comment.

His fingers brushed against her hand as he took the jacket from her and a sudden burst of blinding pain exploded in her head. Her stomach lurched and then she was looking down on Logan's body. He was sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood; multiple bullet wounds bloomed on his chest. His eyes were wide open in a glassy, unseeing stare.

She jerked her hand away and she was back in the Honda and Logan was giving her an odd look.

"You okay, kid? You got real pale all of sudden."

"Yeah, fine," she said, rubbing her eyes with the heels of hands. "Just a migraine coming on."

"Well anyway, thanks for the ride. And for everything else."

She swallowed thickly. The sweet tang of blood was still in her nose. "It was the least I could do."

He grunted. "Some people woulda done less, believe me." He opened the door and got out.

"Hey, Logan?" she called out before he'd shut the door.

He leaned back into the car, eyebrows raised. "Yeah?"

"Be careful, okay?"

The corner of his mouth flicked upward. "Always am." He slammed the door shut and strolled toward the bus station.

Elizabeth sat in the car watching him until he'd disappeared through the double doors. Part of her thought maybe she should have tried to stop him, but the more pragmatic side of her knew there was no way to be certain when—or even if—the vision she'd had would come true. For all she knew it was years away. And what good would come of telling him about it? Even if he believed her, he'd only spend the rest of his life worrying about something he probably had no power to prevent.

No, she'd done the right thing. Besides, she had her own problems at the moment; she couldn't afford to take on anyone else's.

She put the car into reverse and was just about to back out when two police cars screeched into the parking lot, lights flashing but no sirens. They pulled up to the curb and two sets of uniformed officers jumped out and ran inside the bus station.

"Shit," Elizabeth said, to no one in particular. She tapped her thumbnails against the steering wheel, thinking furiously. Her instinct for self-preservation told her to just drive away. If she was smart, that's exactly what she'd do.

She slammed the car back into park, pulled the keys out of the ignition and followed the cops inside.


	3. How to Make a Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere beneath the overriding eau de vomit and urine that permeated the bus station was a familiar scent. One he hadn't smelled in a while, and had hoped never to smell again.

Of all the hells man had created on earth, bus stations had to be somewhere near the top of the list. First you had your hobos and smackheads begging for money. Then there were the recently-released convicts—easily to spot because they were carrying their belongings in a clear plastic bag. Add in a lot of snot-nosed kids and parents long past their last nerve, give them all a bellyful of snack bar nacho cheese, douse them in diesel fumes, and then let them sit around musing on the prospect of being squeezed into a smelly, cramped bus with questionably functional toilets for hours on end. Guantanamo had nothing on Greyhound.

Logan stood in the midst of all this misery, staring at the departure schedule and trying to decide where he wanted to go. He'd been more or less drifting for weeks now, roaming randomly from place to place. It was easy when you were hitchhiking, you just went wherever the guy who picked you up was going. But now that he was in a bus station he had to make an actual decision. Or else go back to hitching. Truth be told, though, he was pretty damn sick of the smell of stale fries and BO-soaked upholstery. Maybe he ought to try and figure out what the hell he was doing out here.

The original idea had been to get away for a while—like a vacation of sorts—to give him some time to clear his head and get his bearings after the all shit that had gone down. He wasn't exactly a vacation kind of guy, though. Checking into some fancy hotel and laying around by the pool? Not really his thing. And sightseeing? He'd rather punch himself in the balls repeatedly. So he'd ended up rambling aimlessly from shit hole to shit hole, which was not exactly turning out to be the tranquil getaway he'd dreamed of.

He could always pack it in and go back to the mansion, of course. There was a bus leaving in a few hours that would eventually get him to New York. Eventually. Christ, he'd be better off stealing a fucking car. But was he ready to go back? The place held a lot of memories and a lot of grief. Not to mention the prospect of having face Summers again.

Screw it, he'd decide later. First he was going to take a piss.

In the men's room some pipsqueak decided it'd be a good idea to strike up a conversation at the urinals. Logan felt pretty proud of himself for resisting the urge to leave the guy's guts dangling over the urinal cake. He washed his hands and face at the sink and stared at himself in the mirror. Even he had to admit he looked like hell. Even more like hell than usual. He wondered what that girl Elizabeth must have made of him.

She was an odd duck. A smart, pretty girl like that living in her car? Hanging around seedy truck stops the middle of the night and picking up mutant hitchhikers like it was nothing? And there was something funny about her accent, too. He was pretty sure it was fake. Ten to one she was on the run. From what, was the question. Not that he'd ever find out. The kid was probably halfway to the state line by now.

Logan stepped out the restroom, looked around, and froze as two cops came charging down the corridor in his direction. They blew past him without a second glance. Whoever they were looking for, it apparently wasn't him. He started to wander back out into the terminal and then froze again, every muscle in his body taut with apprehension. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. Somewhere beneath the overriding _eau de vomit_ and urine that permeated the bus station was a familiar scent. One he hadn't smelled in a while, and had hoped never to smell again.

He turned back the direction the cops had headed and took off running.

  
**\- X -**   


There was no sign of Logan inside the terminal. And no sign of the police, either. Elizabeth waved off a panhandler and walked outside to the loading and unloading area. It was mostly empty this early in the morning; a few empty buses were lined up at the gates, waiting to be put into service, and there was a guy sleeping on the ground under a newspaper, but it wasn't Logan unless he'd lost about eighty pounds in the last ten minutes.

A flash of movement between two of the buses caught her eye so she went to investigate. When she got there no one was in sight, though. She wandered toward the back of the buses, her eyes moving from side to side as she searched for some sign of Logan.

Her nerves jangled a warning a split second before she was hit in the back. The blow knocked the air out of her lungs and send her sprawling face down on the ground. Before she could suck in a breath or even try to push herself to her knees a clawed hand wrapped itself around her throat, lifted her up off the ground and slammed her against the side of the bus.

"You stole something that belonged to us," snarled a voice.

Victor. The part of her brain that wasn't already maddened with panic sent a fresh spike of cold fear down her spine. The Brotherhood had tracked her down.

His fingers tightened on her windpipe, his long fingernails piercing the skin of her throat. Terror clawed at her insides, screaming at all her senses. She struggled violently, trying to pry his hand away and kicking her legs out wildly, but she was no match for his overwhelming brute strength. He wasn't bothering to question her, he was neutralizing her. Which meant the interrogation would take place later, in front of Magneto, and it would be extremely unpleasant. Just as she felt herself beginning to lose consciousness she heard the distinctive _SNIKT_ of metal claws extending.

"Let her go," Logan said.

Victor roared and tossed her like a rag doll. She bounced off the side of a bus and crumpled to the ground in heap. Pain flared in her head as it struck the concrete; her vision went momentarily white, then dark, before gradually beginning to clear. She sucked in a lungful of air, grateful for every molecule despite the pain tearing at her throat. Blood trickled down her neck, hot and sticky. She braced a shaky hand against the ground and levered herself up to a sitting position.

Logan and Victor were battling like two wild animals. She heard a crash as Logan slammed into the side of a bus, hard enough to leave body-shaped dent in it. His long metal claws swiped at Victor and missed. He was forced to dodge as Victor snapped at his face, sharp fangs just centimeters away from ripping into his throat. Logan responded with a kick that sent Victor careening into a trash can. And then suddenly Victor was leaping up over the top of the bus and away, disappearing as abruptly as he'd appeared. Logan looked for a second like he might go after him, but hurried to Elizabeth's side instead.

"You okay?" he asked, his eyes flicking to her bruised and bleeding throat.

"Have ... to ... run," she rasped, every word an agony to her injured windpipe.

"You don't need to worry about that guy."

"No ... the police—"

The rest of her words were cut off by the approaching thunder of booted feet on asphalt. _SNIKT. SNIKT._ The blades shot out of Logan's hands as if by reflex. It was already too late to get away. Nearly a dozen police officers fanned out around them, weapons drawn. Reinforcements had apparently arrived.

"Put your hands up and move away from the woman," ordered one of the officers.

Logan stood up and turned to face the cops, his claws glinting in the early morning sun. The faces that stared back at him were contorted with fear and disgust. Several held their guns in visibly shaking hands. This was it. Elizabeth's vision was happening right now and it was all her fault.

"Don't hurt him!" she cried. Her voice, still weak and reedy, was drowned out by the roar of a low-flying plane overhead. She needed to focus, if only she could clear her mind. She forced herself to her feet, but as soon as she was upright her vision started to swim. She swayed and started to pitch forward.

Logan reached out to steady her, the long metal claws moving in her direction—

The police opened fire. Logan was thrown backwards by the force of the bullets hitting his chest. Elizabeth threw herself to the ground, covering her her ears to shut out the shattering burst of gunfire. It was over in seconds. She could see Logan's body sprawled on the ground, blood just beginning to pool beneath him. Dazed, she crawled to his side. Multiple gunshot wounds bloomed on his chest. She fumbled at his throat for a pulse, knowing even as she did so that she wouldn't find one. His eyes were open wide, unfocused and unseeing.

He was dead. He was dead because he'd tried to help her.

The tight rein she struggled to keep on her emotions shattered and she felt rage bubble up inside her, thick and oily. Her fists balled at her sides. She could taste the bitter tang of adrenaline on the back of her tongue.

Those bloody humans, all they knew how to do was hate. They always had to divide the world up into "us" and "them" so they'd have an enemy to fear. Someone ought to make them pay, said a voice in her head. Someone ought to make them hurt, the way they've made us hurt.

"Step away from the body ma'am. Nice and slow, with your hands in the air."

Her mind crackled with fury as the power uncoiled within her, ready to strike at her command. She looked up at the tense, ashen faces of Lexington's Finest and _pushed_.

A wave of pure psionic energy blasted the police, sending them all flying backwards. Some writhed on the floor, clutching their heads in agony. Others lay unmoving and unconscious—or maybe dead—where they fell. Guns littered the ground; the smell of hot metal and fear filled the air.

With blurring eyes Elizabeth surveyed the damage she had done and felt the power drain away, leaving her with an empty, sick feeling. Despair and remorse welled up inside her, displacing the anger that had driven her only moments ago.

There was a noise behind her.

She spun around and gasped in surprise. A mutant stood not two feet away, where there had certainly been no one a moment before. He was blue and the skin of his face was covered in some sort of ritual scars. If he was one of the Brotherhood he was one she'd never seen before.

He blinked yellow eyes at her and grinned, revealing a mouthful of sharp, fang-like teeth. "Do not be afraid," he said. "I'm a friend of Logan's." He had a gentle voice with a pronounced German accent

"Logan's dead," Elizabeth said numbly.

"We will care take of him, but first, we must get you somewhere safe. Please forgive me for being so forward on such short acquaintance, but—" He stepped forward and embraced her.

Suddenly she was nowhere. It wasn't just that the ground had dropped away beneath her, the whole universe had dropped away. There was just ... nothing. Nothing except the burning smell of sulfur. It was frighteningly close to what she had always imagined hell must be like. And then, just as suddenly, she was _somewhere_ again.

The sense of disorientation was overwhelming, like the worst case of motion sickness she'd ever had, times ten. Her stomach heaved and she was hit by a wave of dizziness strong enough to send her to her knees.

"I think she's going to vomit," said a girl's voice.

"For God's sake, someone get her air sickness bag," said another female voice, older than the first.

She was pretty sure she was on an airplane, she could figure that much out from the sound and the vibrations. Someone pressed a paper bag into her hand. "Here," the girl said. "It'll pass soon. Kinda freaky the first time, isn't it?"

"Look after her," she heard the German say. And then there was another strange noise, similar to the one she'd heard in the bus station, but much louder.

She managed to open one eye without spilling her guts. She was in fact on an airplane of some kind—it was sleek and sci-fi looking, like a military jet or some kind of super high-tech private plane—and the blue guy was nowhere to be seen. The girl crouching next to her smiled. She was pretty, but with a prominent streak of gray hair framing her face. The other woman she'd heard speak was flying the plane. Elizabeth couldn't see her face, but her hair was pure white.

There was another noise and the blue guy appeared out of nowhere, trailing wisps of blue smoke and clutching Logan's body. Elizabeth doubled over as the smell of sulfur sent her stomach churning all over again.

The girl ran over to help him ease Logan's inert form onto the floor of the aisle. "That is a _lot_ of bullet holes," she said. "It might take him a while to wake up this time."

"Wake up?" Elizabeth managed to say through the waves of nausea.

The German stood up and brushed off the front of his jacket. "I assure you, it will take more than a few bullets to kill our friend Logan."

"One time I saw him get shot right between the eyes ," the girl said. "He was up and walking around like five minutes later."

"Oh," Elizabeth said. And then she fainted.


	4. The Devil's Rejects

Logan woke up in his old room at the mansion, which was a surprise, but not an entirely unwelcome one. It beat waking up in the county jail, or the morgue, or some black ops detention facility. He’d done all of those already and couldn’t say he’d enjoyed any of them. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. His shirt was a bloody, bullet-riddled mess. He pulled it off, tossed it into the trash can and shuffled into the bathroom to take a much-needed leak. When he came back out Xavier’s voice popped into his head.

_Welcome back, Logan._

“How’d I get here?” he asked, pulling on a clean shirt.

_I sensed you were heading for trouble so I asked Ororo and Kurt to drop in on you. Rogue insisted on tagging along._

He threw open the door to his room and almost barreled over the professor, who was parked in the hallway right outside. Logan raised his eyebrows. “You been spying on me, Chuck?”

Xavier smiled and started heading down the hall, leaving Logan to tag along in his wake.

“What happened to the girl?” Logan asked.

“Your friend Elizabeth? She’s here as well. Ororo has been attempting to make her feel comfortable. With limited success, I’m afraid.”

“She doesn’t belong here. She’s not one of us.”

Xavier stopped and turned his wheelchair so he could look up at Logan. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“She’s a mutant.”

Logan stared at him. “The hell she is. I never saw her do anything out of the ordinary.”

“She’s a telepath.”

“What, like Jean?”

The professor paused almost imperceptibly—if you weren’t looking for it you might not even have noticed—before saying, “Telepathy was never Jean’s primary gift. Her telekinesis was always much stronger. As far as I know Miss Braddock has no telekinetic abilities. Her gifts are more like mine.”

Logan suppressed a shudder. One professor poking around in his head was bad enough. He didn’t like the thought that he’d been hanging around another mind-reader without even knowing it. There was no telling what kind of stuff she’d fished out of his brain. Or put into it.

Xavier continued down the hall. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Betsy Braddock?”

“No, should I?” Logan said, keeping pace with him.

“She was an English supermodel, a rather famous one. She was romantically linked to several well-known actors.”

Logan shrugged. “I musta let my subscription to _Us Weekly_ run out.”

“Her career ended when she was outed as a mutant. She was attacked by a stalker one night outside a nightclub and manifested a psionic bolt to defend herself. The incident was witnessed by a number of people and the man who attacked her was left with permanent brain damage. He had a knife and almost certainly meant to do her serious harm, but that didn’t seem to matter to anyone.”

“Course not,” Logan sniffed. “And you’re saying this supermodel is Elizabeth?”

Xavier nodded. “She was vilified by the press. Her professional contacts and most of her friends abandoned her, her career ended almost overnight. She must have felt quite angry and alone, it’s hardly surprising that she fell in with the Brotherhood after that.”

“Magneto’s people?”

“She would have been a ideal recruit in Erik’s anti-human crusade. I regret that I made no attempt to contact her myself at the time, but it was shortly before the incident at the Statue of Liberty last year and I was rather preoccupied.”

“She did seem like she was on the run from something. I just figured it was a lousy boyfriend or someone she owed money.” He dodged around a group of the younger students stampeding for the stairs—headed for the cafeteria, by the look of them. Which would make it dinnertime, which meant that he’d been unconscious for hours.

“I’m afraid it’s something much worse than that.”

“Is that what all those cops were doing at the bus station? Because they weren’t looking for me, at least not at first.”

Xavier stopped again. “The police were there looking for Sabretooth, who, in turn, was apparently looking for Miss Braddock. Whatever her involvement with the Brotherhood, she seems to have parted with them on rather bad terms. I would be very interested to know why.”

“Me, too.”

“Unfortunately, so far she’s been rather reluctant to open up to any of us here.” Xavier inclined his head meaningfully at the next-to-last door on the left. “You seem to have formed some sort of bond with her; I was hoping you’d have better luck.”

Logan scowled. “Of course you were.”

Xavier flashed one of those smug little smiles of his and steered his chair back toward the elevator.

“If she’s psychic she’s gonna know I’m here to interrogate her,” Logan said.

“Then don’t interrogate her,” Xavier called over his shoulder. “Why don’t you try showing a little kindness? I think you’ll be amazed where that can get you.”

“Kind ain’t exactly my wheelhouse,” Logan grumbled.

He heard the old man laugh as he disappeared into the elevator. Logan sighed, walked over to the door and knocked.

“Come in,” Elizabeth said.

She was standing by the window. Pale orange light slanted in through the curtains, catching the purple highlights in her hair and turning them a dusky burgundy. “They told me you weren’t dead,” she said, turning to look at him. “I guess they were right.”

“I’m pretty hard to kill.” He closed the door behind him and stepped into the room. “You doing okay?”

She shrugged. “Well enough.”

The bruises around her throat had started to darken and three half-moon shaped puncture marks were visible under one of her ears. She looked tense and exhausted. Logan wondered how long it’d been since she’d slept.

“It’s funny,” he said, “you don’t look like a Betsy to me.”

Her mouth twitched. “They told you about me.”

“I knew that accent of yours sounded fake.”

“I suppose there’s no point in trying to maintain the charade any longer,” she said, dropping into an English accent tempered by years of living in New York.

He pulled the chair out from the desk and swung a leg over the seat so he was straddling the back. “So you’re a telepath, eh? That’s how you got me past those cops.”

“That was simply good old-fashioned ingenuity and bluffing. I try not to use my powers unless I absolutely have to.”

“Why’s that?”

Her expression darkened and she turned back to the window. “Because bad things tend to happen when I do.”

He wondered what she meant by that, but he had more important questions to ask. “The professor thinks you’re mixed up with the Brotherhood.” She didn’t say anything, just kept staring out the window. “Why was Sabretooth after you?” Nothing. He decided to try a different tack. “At least tell me why you came back to the bus station. Were you looking for me?”

She nodded. “I saw the police pull up out front when I was leaving.”

“So? Not like it was your problem.”

She turned and fixed him with those icy blues eyes of hers. Something about the look she was giving him sent a cold chill down his spine. Or maybe it was just knowing that she was a telepath. Mind readers made him twitchy.

“I have visions of the future sometimes,” she said. “I had one in the car, when I gave you your jacket back.”

“That’s why you got all hinky all of a sudden.”

“I saw you lying on the ground in a pool of blood with bullet wounds in your chest. You were dead.”

“Cheerful.” So she was a precog as well as a telepath. That was info Xavier would almost certainly want to have. Logan wasn’t sure yet whether or not he was going to tell him.

“When I saw the police go running into the bus station I thought ...” She trailed off and pressed her lips together.

“You thought you could stop it from happening,” he finished for her.

“Idiotic,” she said bitterly. “As it turned out, my being there is what caused it. I should have remembered my Sophocles.”

“That’s twice now you’ve stuck your neck out for me.”

“And twice you’ve stuck yours out for me. As long as we’re keeping score.”

“That ought to buy me a little bit of trust, don’t you think?”

She seemed to consider this for a moment. “A little, I suppose.”

“Well I’m telling you that these people here, Xavier and the rest, they’re good guys. They can help you.” He corrected himself. “_We_ can help you, with whatever you’ve gotten yourself into. If you let us.”

Her mouth curved in a rueful smile. “The last time I got mixed up with a group of mutants claiming to be the good guys they turned out to be an anti-human terrorist cult.”

“Tell me about it.”

“All right,” she finally conceded. “You know who I am, so I suppose you know what happened to me?”

“I got the gist of it, yeah.”

“Shortly after my fall from grace, I met a woman named Wanda, a mutant. She was the first person who’d been kind to me since I was outed. She introduced me to her brother and some of their mutant friends and for a while it was just nice to have friends again, to be accepted for who I was, you know?”

Logan nodded.

“They called themselves mutant rights activists. We went to a few demonstrations and did some counter-protesting at the anti-mutant rallies. Then one night we broke into this anti-mutant organization’s offices and smashed their computers. There was some more vandalism after that, but it was all petty stuff. Eventually they took me to meet Magneto. He had a lot of interesting things to say."

Logan scowled. “Yeah, that guy really likes the sound of his own voice.”

“I thought he was brilliant. He talked about valuing ourselves and our gifts, standing up for our rights and not letting the humans make us feel inferior. It was all quite appealing to me after everything that had happened. Then he told me they were planning something big, and asked me to help.”

“What was it?”

“Breaking into a top secret Department of Defense facility. Magneto said the government was developing some kind of weapon to use against mutants. He wanted us to break in and steal the schematics, to see for ourselves.”

That got Logan’s attention. “What kind of weapon?”

“I don’t know. It was part of something called Project Wideawake, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”

“You saw it?”

“I saw the facility. It’s supposedly part of a NASA complex in Maryland, but it was being guarded by private security contractors. Serious, hardcore mercenary types.”

“That doesn’t sound like NASA.”

“No. They were definitely building something inside—something big—but I couldn’t tell what from the bits I saw. They didn’t seem to be very far along yet.”

Logan stood up. “We need to tell the others about this right now. If the government’s really building some kind of anti-mutant weapon, the professor needs to know about it.” He held out his hand. “Come with me. Tell them what you saw so we can do something about it.”

She stared at him for a moment. Then she nodded and took his hand.

  
**\- X -**   


Professor Xavier’s office was a stuffy, Tudor-style nightmare that make Elizabeth feel like she was a little girl back in father’s library at Braddock Manor. Logan stood behind her, his arms crossed tensely, while Xavier regarded her mildly from behind an intricately carved mahogany desk. Ororo and Kurt, the two mutants she’d met on the plane yesterday, were there as well. They were all watching her, waiting for her to tell her story.

Xavier made Elizabeth exceedingly uncomfortable. She’d known he was a telepath from the first moment she’d met him, when she stepped off the plane at this bizarre little school of his. Despite the great show he made of playing the benevolent host, she’d felt him silently prodding at her mental barriers, looking for a way inside her mind. It was frankly a bit terrifying. He was remarkably strong, stronger than any telepath she’d ever encountered, and far stronger than she was. It had been all she could do to keep her mind shielded from his attempts at intrusion, and she was almost certain he wasn’t bringing anywhere near the full force of his powers to bear.

And now he was at it again, _tap tap tapping_ away, looking for a weakness to exploit. But she’d be buggered if she was going to let him intimidate her. She forced herself to meet his gaze and calmly said, “Do you mind? I can feel you trying to get into my head and I find it incredibly intrusive.” She heard Logan chuckle quietly behind her.

To her satisfaction Xavier looked appropriately shamefaced. “I apologize,” he said, and she felt him withdraw from her shields. “That was very rude of me. It won’t happen again.”

The door opened and another man walked into the room. Between his wan complexion, the red sunglasses he wore, and the three-day stubble darkening his cheekbones, he gave a strong impression of someone coming off a major bender.

“Scott,” said the professor. “I’m glad you could join us.” He said it gently, but there was a subtle edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. “Elizabeth Braddock, may I introduce Scott Summers, another of my colleagues here at the school.”

Scott nodded at her curtly. Then his gaze found Logan and every muscle in his body seemed to tense. The two men stared at one another like a couple of pit bulls sizing each other up in the fighting ring. This went on for a long, uncomfortable moment before Scott finally scowled and turned away. He went and stood the other side of the room, about as far as it was possible to get from Logan.

“Well,” said Xavier, “now that we’re all here perhaps Elizabeth will share her story with us.” He smiled encouragingly.

She took a deep breath and carefully recounted everything she’d told Logan about her dealings with the Brotherhood and about the NASA facility that was most definitely not a NASA facility.

“I’d heard rumors that such a site existed,” said Xavier. “I am disappointed to discover the rumors are true.”

“We had this guy named Mortimer who was good with computers,” Elizabeth went on. “And he hacked into the system and copied all the relevant files onto a data disk, including the schematics. Then when he was done, he went back to the originals and changed a bunch of numbers around. Just a bit here and there, not enough that anyone would notice, but enough that they’d never get the thing to work.”

Xavier nodded approvingly. “Very clever.”

“While we were waiting for Mortie to finish, Wanda’s brother Pietro started going on about how awesome it was going to be when the ‘insects’ found their own creation turned against them. Apparently Magneto was planning to use the schematics to build a weapon of his own that he could use against the humans. He was going to target Washington, D.C., to teach the U.S. government a lesson.”

“Of course he was,” Scott said.

“That was the first I’d heard about that particular aspect of the plan,” Elizabeth said. “I was appalled.”

“What did you expect when you got into bed with the Brotherhood?” Scott said derisively.

Elizabeth bristled. “Just because I’m angry about the way humans treat us doesn’t mean I think we should start slaughtering them all wholesale. I never signed on for that.”

“So what’d you do about it?” Logan asked.

“Nothing at first. I kept my mouth shut and pretended to go along it. But then once we were safely away I used my powers to get the data disk away from Mortie and rewrite everyone’s memories. I sent them all back to Magneto thinking we’d failed and I’d been caught. And then I ran.”

“I assume Erik saw through the deception and sent Sabretooth after you to retrieve the schematics,” Xavier said. “How disappointed he must have been when we brought you here.”

“Where are the files now?” Ororo asked. “Do you still have them?”

Elizabeth hesitated. “What would you do with them if I did?”

“I suppose that depends upon what the files reveal,” said the professor. “But I can assure you that in this situation our goal is the same as yours—to prevent violence rather than instigate it.”

He seemed sincere, but she knew firsthand how very deceiving appearances could be. She knew next to nothing about these people, how was she was supposed to know if she could trust them? But then she remembered what Logan had said. For whatever reason, her instincts told her to trust him. And he seemed to trust Xavier.

She took off her watch and tore off the data disk she’d taped to the backside. “Here,” she said, tossing it to Ororo. “What now?”

“Before we decide that,” said the professor, “we need to determine exactly what this Project Wideawake was attempting to build.”


	5. Killing Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”_

Elizabeth passed most of the next day on her own at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Ororo and Kurt tried to be friendly, inviting her to join them for breakfast in the dining hall and introducing her to some of the students, but once classes started for the day she was left to fend for herself. There was nothing to occupy her in her dormitory-style room, so she spent most of the morning wandering the school grounds.

In many ways, the Gothic Revival mansion reminded her of her childhood home, a fact that was simultaneously comforting and disconcerting. While the sense of familiarity helped her to find her way around, she’d left Braddock Manor for a reason, and it was unsettling to find herself in its American doppelganger now.

Eventually her explorations led her to the school’s library, a quiet, comfortable room that seemed to be mostly ignored by the students. Elizabeth selected a couple of books from the shelves and settled into a comfortable armchair. She was still there late in the afternoon when Xavier found her.

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity,” he said from the doorway.

She looked up. “Sorry?”

He gestured to the copy of _Walden_ in her hand. “Thoreau. It’s one of my favorite lines. Such a delightful turn of phrase.”

“Some would argue he was diminishing the suffering of the slaves in that passage,” she said, intentionally baiting him.

His mouth quirked in amusement. “Yes, but you and I both know his intent was to raise up the slaves by encouraging the emancipation of the mind and spirit as well as the body.” He glided into the room, maneuvering his wheelchair with effortless grace. “I’ve arranged to have the belongings you left outside the bus station in Lexington sent to you here at the school. The car you, er, borrowed will be returned to its original owner.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m really very grateful for everything you’ve done for me.”

“It’s my pleasure. And you’re welcome to stay here with us as long as you like.”

Elizabeth wasn’t sure what to say to that. She didn’t relish the idea of hanging round Xavier’s school like some useless stowaway. On the other hand she didn’t really have anywhere else to go, either. And for all she knew the Brotherhood still wanted to get their hands on her.

“Have you made any headway with the Project Wideawake files?” she asked, changing the subject.

Xavier’s expression darkened. “Some, and what I’ve found is extremely troubling. I’ve decided to consult with a colleague in Washington.”

Elizabeth stiffened. “Do you think it’s wise to be showing those files around?”

“Believe me, I would not risk sharing them with just anyone. Dr. McCoy is a trusted friend and I find I am greatly in need of his counsel at the moment.”

Elizabeth nodded. She had elected to trust Xavier with the stolen files, she had to hope that his judgement was sound.

He looked at her, his eyes seeming to search her face. “I knew your father, you know. Many years ago.”

“Did you?” She hadn’t known, but she wasn’t all that surprised, really. Her father and Xavier were two of a kind, in more ways than one.

“Elizabeth, I feel I owe you an explanation for my repeated attempts to penetrate your mental shields when you first arrived here.”

This ought to be good, she thought. She set the book aside, giving him the courtesy of her full attention, and waited.

“My primary responsibility is to protect the people who’ve come under my care at this school,” he said. “There have been multiple attempts to infiltrate our ranks in the past, both by humans and by other mutants with less ... noble aims than ours. There are also those who, because of their gifts, may pose a threat to the people around them, even without intending to do so. It’s not their fault, and they may not even realize the danger they present, but I must always be cautious when someone new is admitted to our community. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” she said. “You were worried I was a Brotherhood mole and you wanted to find out if you could trust me. I get it. I’m still not letting you snoop around in my head, but I get it.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “As it happens, I don’t believe you’re a Brotherhood mole.”

“Lucky for me, I suppose.”

“I’m not entirely convinced you don’t still pose a threat to this school, however.”

She found herself unaccountably affronted. “What do you mean by that?”

“I couldn’t help but notice your reluctance to use your mutant abilities. In my experience, when someone is hesitant to use their gifts, it’s because they don’t entirely trust their own control over them.”

“I see,” she said neutrally, unwilling to admit how close he’d managed to hit to the truth. And that was without the benefit of his telepathy. The man was bloody unsettling.

“You’re exceptionally skilled at shielding,” he said. “There are only a dozen or so telepaths in the world strong enough to withstand my menatal probe. Yet I suspect you’ve barely begun to tap the full potential of your power. Mental gifts are not so different from physical ones. Telepathy, like any ability, mutant or otherwise, requires constant exercise in order to build skill and endurance. It’s no different from running or swimming in that way. Your shields are strong because you use them all the time, but I’m willing to bet your other abilities are much weaker and occasionally unpredictable, yes?”

Elizabeth didn’t say anything. Xavier wasn’t wrong, and most of what he was saying made sense, but she wasn’t going to admit it. Her trust in him didn’t extend far enough for her to start revealing her own weaknesses.

“If you like, I could work with you,” he said. “Help you to bring your gifts under control and unleash some of that potential inside you. What would you say to scheduling some private lessons?”

“I’m fairly certain I’d say no,” she replied stiffly.

Whatever problems she might have controlling her mutant powers, she could handle them herself. She wasn’t about to invite Xavier into her head. She’d already put herself under the power of one mutant cult leader with an ambiguous agenda; she wouldn’t be making that mistake again. No matter how benevolent Xavier pretended to be.

“I’m simply making an offer,” he said genially. “You’re under absolutely no obligation to accept.” He rolled to the door and paused, looking back at her. “All I ask is that you think about it.”

 

Much later that evening, after Elizabeth had gone back to her room, Logan showed up at her door. “You know what the worst thing about this place is?” he asked when she opened the door. “No beer. You like beer?”

“I’m English,” she said. “So yes.”

He inclined his head. “Come on, then. Let’s get out of here.”

She grabbed the jacket Ororo had loaned her and followed Logan downstairs. “So we’re allowed to just leave?” she asked.

He shot her a look. “Ain’t a prison, it’s a school, and we’re not students. What’s the professor gonna do? Give us detention?”

Most of the students seemed to have descended upon the common rooms on the ground floor to watch television, play games and socialize. As she and Logan pushed their way through the crowded foyer someone grabbed Elizabeth’s arm from behind—hard—and spun her around.

It was Scott, the guy with the sunglasses, and he didn’t look any happier than he had yesterday. “Those are Jean’s clothes,” he snarled at her. “Where did you get them?”

The front hall, which had been full of chattering students only a moment ago, got extremely quiet. “Ororo gave them to me,” she said, meeting his gaze evenly. “You want to let go of my arm?”

Logan laid a warning hand on Scott’s arm. “Take it easy, man, she didn’t know.”

Scott jerked out of Logan’s grip and gave him a good long glower before stalking off. A gaggle of wide-eyed students pressed themselves against the paneled wall of the corridor to give him a broad berth as he passed.

“That guy really does not like me,” Elizabeth said, rubbing her arm where he’d grabbed it.

“It’s not your fault,” Logan said, watching Scott walk away. “It’s just a case of dislike by association.”

“What’s his problem, anyway?”

Logan turned and started walking again. “His wife died.”

“Well that’s terrible,” Elizabeth said, hurrying to keep up. “Jean would be his wife, then?”

She saw the muscles in Logan’s neck tighten. “Yeah.”

“So what’s his problem with you?”

“He thinks I had a thing for her.”

“Ah,” she said. “Did you?”

“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

“He obviously thinks it does.”

“He’s just looking for someone to blame and I’m a handy target.” He stopped in front of a metal security door at the far end of the corridor and opened an unobtrusive panel in the wall. Inside was a retinal scanner. Dead impressive security tech for a “school.” The scanner approved him and the door unlocked with a low beep.

Elizabeth followed him into a garage that looked like a luxury auto dealer’s showroom. Apparently Xavier had quite the car fetish. “Please tell me we’re taking that Bentley,” she said.

Logan chuckled. “Not where we’re going.”

  
**\- X -**   


Logan took the Charger because it didn’t call too much attention to itself, which was a plus in the kind of neighborhood they were going to. Also because he knew for a fact it wasn’t one of Scott’s. Fucking with Summers wasn’t nearly as much fun when the guy was so obviously and publicly losing his shit.

Kenneally’s Bar was in a plain, uninviting building that looked like a concrete bunker someone had painted white in a misguided attempt to add a little cheer. Logan liked it because it was dark and quiet. Also because it wasn’t the kind of place that had karaoke nights or “craft beers” or frat boys on the make. This time of night on a Tuesday there were only a few sad souls in the place drowning their sorrows in Guinness and Bushmills.

Elizabeth claimed a table in the back while Logan went to the bar for the first round. “Exactly how drunk are you planning to get me?” she asked when he returned with four brimming pint glasses.

“That one’s for you,” he said, pushing a glass toward her. “These three are mine.” He raised his first glass and drained half of it in one long draw.

“Right, then.” She lifted her drink and tilted it in his direction. “Cheers.”

He swiped a hand across his mouth. “So what’s the deal with the purple hair?” he asked.

She smiled. “An act of rebellion, I suppose. When my modeling career went balls up I realized I could do anything I wanted—gain fifty pounds, shave my head. So I dyed my hair purple. And then I sort of liked it, so here I am, a walking blueberry.”

Logan liked it too. It occurred to him that he had a thing for girls with brightly colored hair. Which was exactly the sort of thought he didn’t want to be having. He downed the rest of his beer and reached for the next one. If he drank them fast enough he could almost start to feel a buzz before his healing factor kicked in.

“You know, if you’d told me a week ago there was a prep school for mutants I’d have said you were barking mad,” Elizabeth said.

“It’s a funny old world, ain’t it?”

“So you’re what? A teacher or something?”

“I look like a teacher to you?”

“Not particularly.”

He reached into his breast pocket for the Corona he’d stashed there. “Mind if I smoke?”

“I don’t, but I suspect the State of New York might.”

He popped a claw under the table and sliced the cap off the cigar. “Pretty sure I don’t care about them.” The bar reeked of spilled whiskey, warm beer, and piss. Cigar smoke would be an improvement. He flicked open his Zippo and held it under the end of the cigar, puffing and rotating until the tobacco around the outer rim began to glow. “I gotta ask,” he said, pocketing the lighter. “You seriously never used your Jedi mind tricks when we were on the run? Tell the truth.”

She shook her head. “I never did. Those sheriff’s deputies were just that thick.”

Logan’s eyes flicked reflexively to the door as it opened. It was a habit that had been ingrained during a past he couldn’t remember, as instinctive to him as breathing. A guy in a faded jean jacket wandered up to the bar and greeted Robbie the bartender by name. Logan looked back at Elizabeth, shifting the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Not even on me?”

“Worried I was sussing out your deep dark secrets, are you?”

“Something like that.”

“Why does everyone think their private thoughts are so special and fascinating that I’d even want to eavesdrop on them? You know what I’ve learned from being a telepath? Most of the stuff that goes on in people’s heads is astonishingly banal, petty and mean-spirited. Mind-reading’s not generally something I like to do for fun.”

That struck him as a pretty bleak fucking view of the rest of the world, especially for someone Elizabeth’s age. Most people took a good fifty or sixty years to work up to that kind of misanthropy. You had to admire her initiative.

“Now, Xavier, on the other hand,” she went on. “That man seems to have no qualms about poking around in anyone’s head whenever he likes. I don’t know why you tolerate it.”

Logan grunted. “It’s not like most of us have any choice in the matter. The professor’s okay, though. He’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but he means well.”

Elizabeth was silent for a while, staring into her pint glass. Logan watched her, puffing on his cigar. Eventually she said, “Xavier thinks I’m afraid to use my powers because I can’t control them.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is he right?”

“I couldn’t protect myself from Sabretooth. I ought to have been able to get away from him easily, but when it really mattered I couldn’t seem to tap into my power.” She spoke without looking up, avoiding his eyes. “Then after you were shot it’s like something uncoiled inside me and ... I did something to those policemen. Something bad. I thought you were dead and I was so angry, I just let go for a second and—I don’t even know how I did it, really, or what I did.”

Logan felt bad that she’d seen him get shot up like that. It was easy to forget that for most people, something like that was actually a big fucking deal. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said.

She looked up at him. In the dusky light of the bar her blue eyes were dark as storm clouds. “Sure it was.” She smiled ruefully, then shook her head. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any cigarettes?”

“I can get some.” Robbie always kept a few packs under the bar that he sold at a criminal markup. Logan got up and used his menacing glare to negotiate a reasonable price for a pack of Marlboro Reds.

“Thanks,” Elizabeth said when he tossed the pack on the table. Her hands shook as she tore at the cellophane wrapper. When she’d gotten a cigarette out, he flipped open his Zippo and leaned over to light it for her. She took a long, deep drag, leaned back and closed her eyes as she exhaled. “Lovely. I can always quit again tomorrow, right?”

“You know,” he said, watching her, “if you’re having trouble with your powers you’re in the right place. If anybody can help you, it’s Xavier.”

“He already offered to give me private lessons. I said no.”

“How come?”

“Because it would mean letting him into to my mind. All the way in. And I don’t trust him enough for that. The very thought of it terrifies me.”

“It’s not so bad.”

She looked surprised. “You’ve done it?”

He nodded. “Something wiped out all my memories a few years back. Most of my life is a just a big fat blank. The professor thought he might be able to help, so I let him dig around in my head, looking for clues to who I was.”

“Did he find any?”

Logan shook his head. “He said he couldn’t. And that some secrets were meant to stay buried.”

“Do you believe him?”

“The way I figure it, either he really didn’t find anything, or he did, and it was so bad he didn’t want to tell me. So maybe I don’t wanna know so bad anymore.”

His eye moved to the door as it opened again. This time he knew the people who walked in. “Get a load of these two,” he said.

Rogue and Bobby stood uncertainly by the door, trying and failing to act like they weren’t somewhere they knew damn well they weren’t supposed to be. When she saw Logan and Elizabeth, Rogue broke into a smile and dragged Bobby over to their table.

“It must be our lucky night,” Rogue said, plopping down in a chair. “Now we won’t have to rely on my charms and Bobby’s good looks to buy beer.”

“What makes you think I’m buying you beer?” Logan asked.

“Because you’re cool.”

He snorted. “Not that cool. Anyway, the next round’s on Betts, you’ll have to suck up to her.”

Elizabeth spread her hands. “I’m just a poor, penniless waif dependent upon the kindness of strangers, remember? At least until my things get here.”

Logan sighed and shoved back his chair. “One beer, that’s all you’re getting,” he grumbled.

When he got back with the drinks Rogue was busy quizzing Elizabeth about her modeling career and all the celebrities she’d apparently rubbed noses and other assorted body parts with. “Did you really date Johnny Depp?” the girl asked as Logan set a light beer down in front of her.

Elizabeth smiled faintly. “For about five minutes, a million years ago.”

“Oh my god, that is so cool!” Rogue squealed. Logan and Bobby shared an eye roll across the table. “What’s he like?” she asked.

“He was a perfect gentleman,” Elizabeth said. “Although his personal hygiene was rather in need of improvement.”

Rogue wrinkled her nose. “Ew, that’s two strikes against him.”

“Yes it is,” Elizabeth agreed. The two women laughed, the sudden burst of merriment cutting through the quiet gloom of the bar.

Logan sat back and watched them, content to drink his beer in silence while the girls chattered about a bunch of shit he couldn’t care less about. Bobby joined in the conversation occasionally, but mostly he just sat there nursing his one beer and looking bored. Whatever the kid’s plan for the evening had been when he snuck out with Rogue, it probably wasn’t this.

“How about another one?” Bobby asked hopefully when he’d finished his drink.

“Keep dreaming,” Logan said.

Rogue had hardly touched her beer. “Do you miss it all?” she asked Elizabeth. “You must. All those parties and the celebrities and everything.”

“Sometimes,” Elizabeth admitted. “But the truth is I was starting to get too old for all that shit anyway. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t say shit in front of you two.”

“I used to miss my old life all the time,” Rogue said. “Being a normal teenager and going to a regular school with friends who didn’t have superpowers, you know? But then I got used to it here and I made new friends and now I don’t miss it at all. My old life seems really faraway now, like it happened to someone else. I barely even remember being that girl.”

“What about your parents?” Elizabeth asked. “Don’t you ever miss them?”

Bobby frowned and reached for Rogue’s beer. Logan felt a pang of sympathy for the kid. His folks weren’t exactly in the running for family of the year.

“Not really,” Rogue said. “I mean, they don’t miss me, so why should I waste time missing them, right?” She reached over and squeezed Bobby’s hand with her gloved one.

Rogue almost never talked about the family she’d left behind. Logan didn’t know anything about them except they’d never come looking for her. He’d even checked to make sure Rogue’s face wasn’t being printed on milk cartons somewhere. It wasn’t. Some people didn’t deserve to have kids.

Bobby finished off the rest of Rogue’s beer and Logan decided it was probably about time for someone to start acting like a responsible adult. “Time for you two to call it a night,” he said. “How’d you get here, anyway?”

“Hitchhiked,” Rogue said proudly.

“Jesus,” Logan said. “Are you out of your fucking minds?” At least Bobby had the sense to look guilty about it.

“What’s wrong with hitching?” Rogue asked, pushing her lips into a pout. “That’s how we met, remember?”

“That’s exactly what’s wrong with it. Also, you didn’t hitch, you stowed away.” He finished off the last of his beer and stood up. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”


	6. Girl on Fire

By the time they got back to the mansion all the common areas were dim and deserted. Logan always felt Xavier’s imposing stronghold was at its spookiest at night. Once the students had gone to bed, taking all that youthful clamor and commotion with them, he couldn't help thinking about the cold, patrician arrogance that most have gone into building a place like this, and of the withering loneliness that seemed etched into its bones.

Elizabeth was quiet as they walked Rogue and Bobby up to their rooms. The two kids had been chattering and giggling under the influence of the beer, but she hadn’t said much on the drive back. Logan figured her conversation with Rogue had probably gotten her thinking about her old life. It had to be rough, falling off a pedestal that high.

They bid Rogue and Bobby goodnight at the end of the long hall lined with student dormitories, lingering long enough to make sure they each went into their own room.

“They’re good kids,” Elizabeth finally said as they made their way back to the teacher’s wing.

“Yeah, they’re not bad,” Logan said.

“I feel for poor Bobby, though.”

“Why?”

She threw a sideways look his way. “Because his girlfriend’s got a huge crush on you.”

Logan grimaced. “I keep hoping she’ll grow outta that.”

“She will ... eventually.” They reached Elizabeth’s room. She turned to face him, leaning against the closed door with her hands tucked into the small of her back. “Thanks for the drinks, Logan. And the company.”

His mouth crooked into a smile. “You’re welcome, Betsy.”

“Betsy was my professional name,” she said, making a face. “My friends always called me Elizabeth.”

A lock of purple hair had slithered over her shoulder and he reached up to brush it back. “Are we friends?”

“Would you like to be?” she asked, tilting her head in a way that was clearly meant to be an invitation.

The last woman he’d kissed was that bitch Mystique. That was the same night he’d kissed Jean, the night before she died. It was a bittersweet memory, one he wouldn’t mind erasing.

He leaned in and pressed his mouth to Elizabeth’s. She smiled against his lips and hooked a hand around his neck, drawing him closer. He felt a moment’s doubt, wondering if this was really a good idea, but the insistence of her mouth and the steady pressure of her fingers running through his hair melted them away. The woman knew what she was doing. And something told him she needed this as much as he did.

His lips skimmed their way down to her throat, searching for the warm throb of her pulse. She drew in a quick breath as one of his hands found the swell of her breast. He dipped his head lower, his mouth brushing along her collarbone—

—and abruptly pulled away. “Goddammit,” he groaned, fighting to shake off the haze of memories that dragged at him.

“What’s the matter?”

“I can smell her on you,” he said raggedly.

“Who?”

“Jean.”

“Oh good God,” she said, drawing back. “How is that even possible?”

He pressed his forehead against the doorjamb, silently cursing Storm and her misguided attempts to be helpful. “It’s the clothes,” he said. “That and my mutant sense of smell.”

She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “That’s a hell of an ability. Must be murder in public toilets.”

“You get used to it.” He turned his face into her hair—that, at least, smelled unmistakably like Elizabeth (and cigarettes and watermelon shampoo) and nothing at all like Jean (her shampoo was rosemary and mint, and she always carried the scent of the antiseptic in the lab where she spent so much of her time)—and breathed in deeply. Jean was gone. Elizabeth was here now.

“When it comes right down to it,” he said, reaching up to twine his fingers in her hair, “we’re all just animals, driven by reflexes and instincts and pheromones.”

“How very determinist of you,” she said.

“I don’t know what that means, but I can tell you’re turned on, just by the smell of you.”

Her hand pressed against the front of his jeans, tracing the hardened flesh beneath the fabric. “I don’t need to use my mutant senses to know you’re aroused,” she said, smiling as he groaned in response. “But is that for me, or for the girl who got away?”

“Let’s get you out of those clothes and find out,” he said, the words coming out in a growl.

He’d have laid the odds of her taking him up on it at less than ten to one against, but she reached behind her for the doorknob and a moment later they were tumbling into the room together, a tangle of limbs and lips and questing hands.

 

Logan stood on a narrow and twisting staircase. Wind streamed past his face, bringing hot tears to his eyes. There was no railing to hold onto and nothing beyond the edge of the stairs except a yawning darkness that seemed to stretch on forever. Tendrils of terror twisted through his gut as the icy wind pulled at him, threatening to upset his balance. He wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and cling to the steps for dear life, but he knew he had to keep moving if he wanted to get out of this place.

Cautiously, he dared a look behind him. The stairs seemed to go on forever, disappearing into the darkness below. His stomach lurched as a wave of vertigo struck him. He wavered, teetering precariously, but managed to recover his balance. Down was definitely not the way to go. It had to be up.

It took almost all of his considerable will to raise one leaden foot and place it on the next step. The stairs were old and rickety and the wood creaked in protest, bowing perilously under his weight. He leaned forward, into his fear and the biting wind, and forced himself to take another step. And another after that.

His hands and face were numb with cold. He couldn’t stop shivering, but he pressed on, stubbornly putting one foot after another. It was like trudging through a snowbank, except there wasn’t any snow, just the bone-chilling, unrelenting wind.

A sudden, savage gust caught him off balance, causing the stairs to shudder and shake beneath his feet. He stumbled, and felt himself falling towards the edge, into the terrifying nothingness beyond. He flailed out, desperate for anything to hold onto—

Logan’s hand bounced off the edge of the night table, jarring him awake. He was freezing, as cold as he’d been in the dream. His brain felt muzzy and it took him far too long to figure out where he was. Gradually, memories of the night before began to come back to him. He was at Xavier’s school. In Elizabeth’s room. In her bed.

She lay beside him, curled up under the covers in a ball. She moaned and whimpered in her sleep, her head twitching back and forth, in the throes of a nightmare. He wondered if he should wake her up. Didn’t they say not to wake someone in the middle of a bad dream? Or was that sleepwalking? He couldn’t seem to remember. He stared at her, unable to move or make a decision. His mind just didn’t seem to be working right. He saw his pants balled up on the floor in a corner of the room and decided to try to crawl over to them. It took him a while, but he felt a little better once he’d managed to pull them on. His head seemed a little clearer, now that he was out of bed.

He heard Elizabeth cry out behind him and it occurred to him that maybe she was doing all of this with her telepathy, causing the cold and the fogginess in his head. He had to wake her up, to put a stop to it.

He began to crawl back to the bed, but his movements were agonizingly slow. It was like being back in the dream again, with the fear and the cold and his body stubbornly refusing to obey. But he knew he had to get to her, to wake her up, so she would stop all this. “Betts,” he croaked weakly. “Elizabeth, wake up.” It wasn’t enough. He forced himself onward, slowly closing the distance between them. Finally he reached the bed and managed to grab her arm, shaking her roughly.

She started awake screaming and a wall of pure, concentrated fear hit Logan like a shotgun blast to the chest. He was slammed backwards into the dresser and crumpled to the floor gasping and shaking.

“Logan? Oh my God, Logan, are you all right?”

“Peachy,” he managed to say. He felt Elizabeth at his side, her soft cool hands grasping his shoulders and helping him back to his feet. “Goddamn,” he said, rubbing his head. “That was intense.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”

The door burst open. “What the _fuck_ are you trying to do to us?” shouted Scott.

Elizabeth flinched as if she’d been struck. Tears sprang to her eyes.

Logan shoved Scott back into the hall, pulling the door closed behind them. “It’s under control,” he said in a low, firm voice.

“The hell it is!” Scott was pale and shaking with anger or fear or both. “She was projecting all over the place. This is a school, there are children sleeping below us!”

“Keep your goddamn voice down,” Logan hissed.

“She shouldn’t be here.”

“That’s not up to you to decide.”

“No, it’s up to the professor. What do you think he’s going to do when he hears about this? She’s a danger to everyone around her. She’s toxic, just like you, Logan. Everything you touch turns to shit.”

Logan felt his hands curl into fists. He wanted so badly to punch the guy right in that smug fucking face of his. But that was exactly what Summers expected him to do. And Logan would be damned if he was going to give him the satisfaction.

“Why did you even come back here?” Scott spat at him. “Haven’t you caused everyone enough trouble?”

Logan opened his mouth to reply but Scott didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. He spun around and stalked back to his room, slamming the door behind him.

“Is everything all right?”

A disheveled-looking Kurt had come out of his room. Behind him, Logan caught a glimpse of white hair as Storm backed out of sight. They’d probably heard the whole damn thing. Hell, everyone probably had.

“Yeah,” Logan said grimly. “Everything’s fucking fantastic..”

He went back into Elizabeth’s room. She was sitting on the bed clutching her knees to her chest. “Scott’s right,” she said, looking up at him.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “About you or about me?”

“About me. Did I really give everyone my nightmare?”

“Was it about climbing a staircase?” She nodded, her sapphire eyes wide and haunted. “Then yeah,” he said. “I guess you did. It was doozy.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said, shuddering. “I’ve never done anything like that before, I swear.”

“It’s all right.” He laid a hand on her arm. She was ice cold.

“It’s not all right,” she said miserably. “There are children here, what if I gave them all my nightmare, too?”

He pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her. “Then they’ll have one bad night’s sleep and they’ll get over it. Kids have nightmares all the time. It’s no big deal, no one got hurt.”

“You did.”

“Yeah, but I’m tough.” He pulled her close, trying to transfer some of his warmth to her. “Listen, you should ask Rogue what I did to her one time when I was having a bad dream. Trust me, this is nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, curling up against him. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

“I know,” he said, and held her until she fell into an uneasy sleep.


	7. The Great American Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s called the Sentinel Mark I. And its purpose is to identify mutants and kill them. Indiscriminately.”

Elizabeth groaned as someone nudged her awake. “C’mon,” Logan said, not altogether ungently. “Time to get up.”

She opened a bleary eye wide enough to glare at him. The morning sun was blindingly bright and her head ached. “It’s too early, leave me alone.” She rolled over and covered her head with a pillow.

Logan grabbed the pillow away and swatted her with it. “No can do, the professor wants to see us.”

That got her attention. “Shit,” she said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

“Relax. It’s about those files you gave us.”

“How do you know?”

He tapped the side of his head. “Xavier express telegram. Now get dressed.”

 

They weren’t meeting in the professor’s study this time, but somewhere down in a sub-level that Elizabeth hadn’t even realized existed. As Logan escorted her through the labyrinth of reinforced steel corridors beneath the school she couldn’t help but wonder what other secrets Xavier was hiding down here.

The others were waiting for them in a sleek, modern conference room furnished with a Tazio Aniegre table, Herman Miller chairs, and an impressive array of flatscreen monitors covering one wall. Some of the monitors were tuned to national and international news broadcasts, some projected maps of different parts of the world, and some showed what appeared to be satellite imagery of various locations around the earth.

A furry blue mutant sat at the head of the table frowning at a laptop. Elizabeth recognized him at once. His name was Henry McCoy and he was a prominent scientist and pro-mutant activist who was always turning up on the news programs when they wanted someone to give the “mutant perspective” on an issue.

“What’s with the Grape Ape?” Logan asked, eying him warily. Elizabeth winced inwardly. The man really had a way of making friends.

McCoy looked up from his computer, gave Logan a perfunctory once-over and said, “How’s the Civil War going, General Burnside?”

She braced herself for Logan’s angry response, but he surprised her when his mouth twitched into a grin. “That’s a good one,” he said. “I like that.”

“Logan, Elizabeth, allow me to introduce Dr. Henry McCoy,” Xavier said. “Henry is an old and very dear friend of mine.”

“It’s an honor to meet you,” Elizabeth said, extending her hand.

McCoy stood up like a proper gentleman and grasped her hand in his large, furry one. “Believe me, Miss Braddock, the pleasure’s all mine,” he said, smiling warmly.

“Yeah, I’ll bet it is,” Logan mumbled, rolling his eyes as he dropped into a chair.

Scott gave Elizabeth an icy look as she took a seat beside Ororo. It was impressive how much enmity the man managed to convey with his eyes hidden behind those red-tinted sunglasses. At least Kurt had a kindly smile for her.

Xavier nodded across the length of the table at Dr. McCoy. “Now that we’re all here, why don’t you begin, Henry?”

“Of course,” McCoy said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his flat, broad nose. “The professor called me here to take a look at the files that Miss Braddock acquired. I’ve been up most of the night studying them and I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface, but what I’ve discovered so far is deeply unsettling.” He tapped a key on his laptop and the largest monitor on the wall displayed a list of names with accompanying pictures. “The files are part of a government initiative known as Project Wideawake, a covert interdepartmental commission that was formed nearly a decade ago to deal with the so-called ‘mutant menace.’ Over the years its members have included representatives from every branch of government, including the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, several members of Congress, and at least one federal judge.”

Elizabeth studied the list up on the screen. She recognized the names of several prominent government officials, including one particularly oily politician who’d tried unsuccessfully to flirt with her at a fundraiser a few years ago.

“Stryker,” Logan muttered beside her. “Why aren’t I surprised he was part of this?”

Xavier nodded, frowning slightly. “Yes, it appears Col. Stryker was an active member of the commission, as well our late friend Senator Kelly.”

“Initially,” McCoy continued, “the commission seems to have focused on developing contingency plans against a number of perceived mutant threats. Mutant-proof security measures, strategies for defending against various kinds of mutant attacks, that sort of thing. More recently, however, the initiative’s agenda has taken a decidedly more ominous tack, and it’s begun to pursue anti-mutant offensive measures.”

“You mean like the weapon Betts saw?” Logan asked, leaning back in his chair. “It’s the real deal, then?”

“I am afraid it’s very real,” Dr. McCoy said. He tapped on his laptop again and a series of complicated technical diagrams appeared on the monitor. “It’s called the Sentinel Mark I. And its purpose is to identify mutants and kill them. Indiscriminately.”

For a moment no one said anything, they all just sat there in a collectively stunned silence. Ororo was the first to speak, her face set in hard lines. “Identify us how?”

Personally, Elizabeth was a little more concerned with the indiscriminate killing part, but Ororo’s question was probably an important one, as well.

Dr. McCoy took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. His expression was grim. “It’s equipped with complex biological sensors capable of not only detecting mutant powers in active use at a distance, but also performing a DNA scan at a range of up to 500 meters that can identify an individual carrying the mutant gene, even if it’s dormant.”

“My God,” Scott said.

There was another silence as everyone absorbed the ramifications of what they’d just heard. Some mutants, like Kurt and Dr. McCoy, obviously didn’t have the option of hiding what they were. But for for those who did, keeping their true nature a secret was the only way they were allowed to live a normal, peaceful life. Elizabeth had learned the hard way just how precious that anonymity was after it had been stripped from her.

“I can’t make heads or tails of that technical mumbo jumbo,” Logan said, waving his hand vaguely at the screen. “What’s this thing look like, exactly? Some kind of gun?”

“No,” McCoy said. “It is most definitely not a gun.” The picture on the monitor changed, the schematics spinning and coming together into a three-dimensional rendering.

Elizabeth stared at it in disbelief. Beside her, she heard Logan suck in a sharp breath. “Jesus,” he said.

“As designed, the Sentinel is a cybernetic humanoid tactical assault machine equipped with an adaptive, open-ended strategic programming system for autonomous deployment,” Dr. McCoy explained.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said, his brow furrowed, “but I do not know what any of that means.”

“I think giant death robot pretty much sums it up,” McCoy said wryly. “It was designed by Dr. Boliver Trask, an anthropologist and cyberneticist working with Shaw Industries.” A picture of a white-haired scientist appeared on the screen, along with several newspaper articles.

Scott frowned at the screen. “I’ve heard that name somewhere before.”

“I’m not surprised,” Xavier said. “Dr. Trask made quite a name for himself a few years ago when he published a series of articles on the mutant threat. He believes that all mutants are part of a global conspiracy with only one goal: to rule the earth and enslave humanity.”

Logan raised one eyebrow. “So he’s a wackjob.”

McCoy smiled thinly. “Nutty as a rat turd in a peanut butter factory. But he’s also a brilliant scientist. The Sentinel has a titanium reinforced superstructure that renders it impervious to blasts up to 400 kJ—roughly the equivalent of an anti-tank grenade—and it’s armed with a high-energy plasma cannon and an inorganic matter disintegrator. It’s also equipped with thrusters for limited flight capabilities.”

“You mean it’s a giant _flying_ death robot?” Logan said. “Terrific.”

“If they manage to complete a working prototype, it will be the most technologically advanced killing machine in existence,” Dr. McCoy said darkly.

Kurt crossed himself, muttering under his breath. Beside her, Elizabeth could feel the tension radiating from Logan; every muscle in his body was taut with anger and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Magneto had intended to set this abomination loose on Washington, D.C., and she’d very nearly helped deliver it to him. Not that she was any more comfortable with the U.S. government possessing one of these things. Even designing such a monstrosity was an act of genocide as far as she was concerned.

Scott leaned forward and placed his palms flat on the table. The muscles in his jaw were taut with barely-suppressed anger. “All right,” he said quietly. “So what are we going to do about it?”

“Mortimer altered the schematics,” Elizabeth said. “They’ll never get their prototype to work.”

“Perhaps,” Xavier said thoughtfully. “But in this case I’d feel more comfortable with some additional insurance. A catastrophic natural disaster ought to do the trick.” He looked pointedly at Ororo.

“A tornado?” she suggested. “I can level the whole complex to the ground.”

“Yes, but let’s be certain it looks natural. I don’t want any meteorologists scratching their heads over freak weather patterns.”

“That’s swell,” Logan said. “But what do the rest of us get to destroy? Because I _really_ wanna destroy something.”

Xavier turned a stern eye on Logan. “The rest of us are going to keep our heads down for the time being. The last thing we need is the government suspecting any more mutants of launching terrorist attacks.”

Scott’s head snapped up. “So we’re just supposed to forget that they tried to invent a weapon to kill us all?”

“I’m not suggesting we forget anything.” Xavier’s tone was sharp, like a parent reprimanding a child, and it seemed to provoke Scott.

“This is way beyond the Mutant Registration Act,” he shot back. “They’ve created a weapon explicitly designed to exterminate us. If that’s not an act of war, I don’t know what is. We need to fight back.”

Xavier was unmoved. “And prove that all their fears of us are well-placed? Exactly how will that help the mutant cause?”

“I can’t believe I’m about to agree with four-eyes,” Logan cut in, “but if they can design this thing once, they can do it again. What are we gonna do about the next one? Sit back and wait for it to come after us? That ain’t exactly my style.”

“Nor is it mine,” Xavier said coldly.

McCoy shifted uneasily. “As much as I’d like to blow the entire Department of Defense off the face of the earth right now, I’m afraid the professor’s right. If we go on the offensive the government will only feel justified in waging war against us. They’ll redouble their efforts and the rest of the country will cheer them on.”

“Then we’ll redouble ours!” Scott said. “We have to show them we’re not going to stand idly by while they plot our extermination.”

“That sounds an awful lot like something Magneto would say,” Elizabeth observed quietly.

Scott rounded on her angrily, but before he could reply Professor Xavier intervened: “I understand your anger, Scott, and believe me, I share it. But engaging in a war with humankind is not the answer. Such a course would almost certainly result in mass extinctions on both sides. There can be no winner in such a conflict, which is exactly what Magneto, blinded by his own megalomania, has always failed to grasp.”

Scott stared at Xavier for a moment, then his shoulders slumped and he nodded in resignation. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“We’re all understandably upset by this information,” Xavier said. “And believe me I have no intention of sitting on my hands. Henry has already agreed to stay on and start working on methods of counteracting the Sentinel technology. But our first priority must be ensuring this prototype never sees the light of day.”

“I’ll leave after dark,” Ororo said. “Take out the complex when it’s most likely to be empty.”

“Elizabeth,” Xavier turned to address her, “I’d appreciate it if you’d go with Storm so you can show her exactly where this so-called NASA facility is located.”

“Of course,” Elizabeth replied. She’d be more than happy to see that whole place flattened into rubble.

“I’m going, too,” Scott said, giving her a look that said he clearly didn’t trust her to do even this simple task.

“And me,” Logan said, frowning at Scott.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to come along as well,” Dr. McCoy said. “I’d very much like to lay eyes this complex for myself. And it’s been a while since I’ve gone for a ride in the old Blackbird.”

“Very well,” Xavier said, nodding.

“I’ll go prep the jet,” Ororo said, standing up. “Hank, you want to help me? If you still remember how, that is.”

He smiled at her. “Considering I built the thing, I think I may have some vague recollection in my cobwebby old brain.”

“Elizabeth,” Xavier said. “A word before you go?”

She froze, halfway out of her seat. It had obviously been too much to hope that Xavier would simply overlook the incident last night. She sank back into her chair with a feeling of impending doom while the others filed out. Logan was the last to leave, and he threw her an encouraging nod as he backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“I suppose this is about last night,” she said, turning to meet Xavier’s gaze.

“What happened last night?” he asked benignly.

“Let’s not play games. You obviously know what happened.”

“I do, but I’m interested to hear your version of the story.”

Which meant he’d heard Scott’s version already. Hardly surprising, the man had probably gone running to Xavier at the crack of dawn to complain about her. She shrugged. “I was having a nightmare and I suppose I projected it. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

He steepled his fingers and regarded her gravely. “Has anything like that ever happened before?”

She shook her head. “No, never. And then when Logan tried to wake me up, he startled me and I ...” She trailed off, too ashamed to say the words aloud.

“You lashed out in fear,” he finished for her.

“Yes.” She paused, remembering how pale Logan had looked, and how far she’d flung him, just with the force of her fear. “I could have hurt him.”

“But you didn’t, not seriously, anyway.”

“What about the children?” she asked. “Did it affect any of them?”

“No, you weren’t projecting strongly enough to reach that far.”

“But I could have.”

“It’s possible, yes. Next time you might.”

She nodded solemnly. “I can leave as soon as my things get here.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why would you do that?”

“Because Scott’s right, I’m dangerous. It’s like you said yesterday, my powers are unpredictable. Next time I could seriously hurt someone.”

“Which is exactly why I’d prefer to have you here, where there are people who understand what you’re going through and can help you, rather than out there on your own, where you’re likely to be met with fear and misapprehension. None of this is your fault, Elizabeth. Your whole life has been turned upside down, you’ve been betrayed by people you trusted, forced to flee for your life, and violently attacked. Anyone would show signs of stress under the circumstances.”

No matter what Logan had said, she still couldn’t quite bring herself to trust the professor. He was altogether too kindly, too benevolent. He seemed too good to be true. She’d let her guard down once with Wanda and Pietro because she’d wanted so badly to believe they were her friends. She wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

“What if I want to leave?” she asked.

“I would advise you very strongly against it,” Xavier replied. “Unless you want to risk hurting more people, and possibly even yourself. I’m also not entirely convinced the Brotherhood is through with you. Magneto has been known to nurture a grudge for a very long time.”

“You’re saying I have no choice?”

“I won’t hold you here against your will, if that’s what you’re implying. I feel quite certain, however, that you know what you have to do.”

The thought that Sabretooth might still be out there hunting her sent a chill down her spine. She didn’t entirely trust Xavier, but she was fairly certain she’d rather take her chances with him than face Magneto again. “You really believe you can teach me to control my powers?” she asked.

“I am certain of it,” he said. “And I promise to be no more intrusive than absolutely necessary to help you.”

Elizabeth nodded. “All right. I’ll stay.”

For the time being, anyway. Just long enough to learn what she needed from Xavier. Once she had enough control over her own powers to protect herself she wouldn’t need this place anymore.

She wouldn’t need anyone, then.


End file.
